Putin will arrive in Minsk on May 31

Vladimir Putin will pay his first foreign visit as President to Belarus on May 31, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.

Putin and his Belarus counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, agreed on the visit during their meeting in the Kremlin on Tuesday. The meeting took place on the sidelines of an informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States, an alliance of former Soviet republics, in Moscow.

Putin was sworn in as president on May 7. The Russian media earlier reported he was considering paying his first foreign visit after inauguration to either Kazakhstan or Belarus.